Battle for the Earth (17 page)

As the three transports set down within the force field, Konoco joined Marie in the assembly area in front of the lift shafts.

‘It’s going well, Marie, don’t you think?’

‘Thanks to Pausanias, yes,’ Marie replied.

‘Who?’ queried Konoco.

‘Pausanias - you know, the Android leader.’

‘He has a name?’

‘Of course he has a name. Didn’t you know?’

‘We never asked. As far as we knew they used numbers for identification.’

‘For ten years you’ve just used numbers to identify them?’

At that moment Pausanias joined them.

‘Pausanias, why didn’t you tell Konoco that you had a name?’

‘There was no need. The Dropas were quite happily identifying us with numbers. It seemed to work well for them.’

Marie was astounded. Even back on Earth Thourus had a name, although on reflection, not that many Androids did have names, just the higher-ranking ones.

Again events were starting to overtake her. The first of the new inhabitants were beginning to arrive, Marie smiled and went forward to greet them. After all it had been a hectic three days for everyone.

It was going to be a long haul getting everybody settled in and comfortable, although the facilities were second to none, and a huge improvement on Earth Central.

After the first couple of hours, once she had satisfied herself that everything was going smoothly, Marie returned to the control room with Konoco. The first thing they noticed there was that a whole new array of instrumentation had come online.

Marie asked Konoco tentatively if he knew what they were for. Konoco confirmed Marie’s suspicions that he didn’t have a clue; they had never been online before, in fact he hadn’t even known of their existence.

Marie was just about to ask Pausanias to join them when he appeared at the control panel and started confidently adjusting the screens. Marie joined him. For some reason Pausanias seemed to like Marie and Marie requited the feeling.

‘What do these controls do, Pausanias?’

Marie smiled gently as she put the question, not wanting to appear dim-witted.

‘These control the internal habitat. I’m adjusting them to suit the arrival of our new guests - oxygen levels, humidity, temperature and the like - we want our new guests to be comfortable, now don’t we?’

Marie was beginning to feel at her ease with the easygoing and, at times, almost humorous Pausanias. The Dropas were right she thought, there was a lot more than nuts and bolts to these Androids.

Konoco was at a different control station, one which looked much more complex. He had a puzzled look on his face.

‘Pausanias, could you look at this for me?’

Konoco had just rephrased the question, ‘What’s this?’

That was neat, thought Marie.

Pausanias joined Konoco at the control station. He adjusted a few interactive sliders, rotated his hand above his head and both he and Konoco were suddenly enveloped by a three-dimensional plan of the universe. Konoco was obviously flabbergasted. The Dropas had a wide range of technology but nothing on this scale.

Pausanias selected our galaxy and touched it with his finger. That section expanded until it showed just our home planets and space surrounding them. He then selected Mars and the visual display expanded to show Mars and its surrounding space.

The red planet looked impressive, and Pausanias stood spinning it slowly with his finger till he reached the point he wanted. He then touched that point on the surface of Mars and again it expanded and zoomed right in to the three transports sitting there, with a clarity that would have been hard to believe, unless you had seen it with your own eyes. Marie had now joined them at the control station again, amazed at the sight before her. Konoco was the first to speak.

‘Is it just a map, or can you track movement?’

His remark was not meant to be dismissive. He was in fact almost in shock. For ten years the Dropas scientists had been able to access only the most basic elements of the Mars base. Now within minutes it seemed as if a Pandora’s box was opening, but someone else was in charge of this hive of technology.

‘There are many things we will need to discuss, Konoco. The first is this. It is indeed more than a map, my friend. It is a complete defence structure for the security of the Mars undertaking.’

Pausanias’s whole persona had now changed from subservience to become almost authoritarian. Marie and Konoco exchanged glances. Marie felt it would probably be better if she took over the conversation. After all, she felt she had now built up an understanding with Pausanias.

‘Do you have weapons here, Pausanias? I mean some kind of pulse weapons for defence?’

Pausanias smiled, a wide smile as if he had anticipated the question and where it would come from. Marie immediately went on the defensive.

‘I don’t mean to be intrusive, but you have to admit this is all new to us.’

Any thoughts Marie and Konoco had that Pausanias could just be an Android were now quickly dismissed. Then suddenly it came to Marie, the answer to that question lingering at the back of her mind: like a bolt out of the blue, you don’t know why, it just suddenly comes back to you.

‘Pausanias, you’re named after the ancient Greek writer. He was first century or, no ... second century, he wrote books, geography, ancient geography.’

Pausanias looked impressed. Konoco hadn’t picked up on the relevance of this.

‘The name is over seventeen hundred years old, an ancient name like John and Mary. They survived the test of time thanks to the Bible, but also mainly ease of use. Names like Pausanias never survived past the first or second century.’

Marie paused for thought.

‘You built this base, didn’t you?’

Pausanias laughed out loud.

‘Not by myself.’

Marie and Konoco exchanged glances again.

‘You’re sentient, aren’t you?

‘We’ll cover that later if you don’t mind. First I must show you this.’

Marie noticed he hadn’t given an answer to the main question.

He was spinning the representation of Mars again, where little red areas were appearing on the surface of Mars. He zoomed in on one of the areas and a menu appeared. Carefully selecting differing options from the menu, he satisfied himself that the configuration he wanted was set, then pressed one more digit and the red spots turned green.

‘What just happened?’

Marie was now becoming concerned about to how she was going to explain all this to Lee and Jumouk.

‘That’s the defences around Mars activated now. We will be safe from any Annunaki attack or interference.’

Pausanias closed down the representation and headed towards one of the many annexes scattered around the perimeter of the control room. Marie and Konoco followed him.

**

34

Lee was still reeling from the loss of the Russian base. Jumouk seemed to be handling it better, even though there were probable many Dropas losses as well as human. There hadn’t been any confirmation of the fate of the occupants of the Russian base, but Lee was in no doubt what he thought would have happened. The Annunaki had no compassion whatsoever, so the chance of anyone surviving would have been extremely slim.

However, it wasn’t all bad news. The three transports that had left Earth were now assumed to have landed and decamped safely on Mars under the direction of Konoco and Marie.

Finney had been called out of the room a few moments ago by one of his commanders. He reappeared with two bedraggled figures in tow, one human and one Dropas. Apparently survivors of the ill-fated Russian base, they carried with them an ultimatum from Nalater. The total surrender of all ESG and Android forces within the next twenty-four hours, or the slaughter of the civilian population held within the Russian base. He had even been kind enough to provide the exact numbers of what were now hostages.

This was turning into a nightmare for Lee. If the Annunaki had already killed everyone, there truly would have been nothing he could have done, but this demand changed things in ways for the time being he could only imagine.

Jumouk led Lee into the corner of the room away from prying ears. Again it was Jumouk who came to Lee’s rescue.

‘You know, Lee, this doesn’t really change anything. We can’t sacrifice the rest of the world for one base.’

‘I know, but we must be able to do something?’

Jumouk shook his head.

‘The Annunaki know we won’t agree to this. It’s just their way of twisting the knife. They’re trying to unnerve us.’

Lee turned to Finney and asked him to take the two survivors and get them cleaned up and fed. He was still running things over in his mind in a futile attempt to come up with a plan. In the back of his mind though he knew Jumouk was right.

Fiona had been struggling to hold back her tears. This was all too close to home for her. After all, if it hadn’t been for Jumouk, Lee and the daring evacuation at Earth Central, it would have been her fate too.

Lee was watching the Annunaki forces at Reutov, when without warning the battle cruisers and assault craft started moving out.

‘Jumouk, come see this.’

‘Where are they going?’

Lee was genuinely stumped.

‘I don’t know, and why are they leaving?’

They were both thinking the same thing. This has to be a trap.

‘They look like they’re heading back to Dulles, but why? Surely they don’t think we would fall for such an obvious trap?’

Jumouk made a quick decision.

‘Lee, contact the transports and get them to go directly to Reutov. Fiona, contact Grant at Sub Sea One, and tell him to mobilise Thourus and all of his TAG assault craft, then meet us at Reutov.’

Lee looked at Jumouk with a blank expression.

‘They don’t expect us to fall for it, that’s exactly why we’re doing it. Now get the cruisers ready to go.’

Lee sped off in the direction of the two ESG cruisers, leaving Jumouk to give Fiona and Finney their standing orders.

**

Strangely enough, this wasn’t an Annunaki trap. A large group of human resistance fighters had attacked Dulles and, although they were using conventional weapons, they were doing a significant amount of damage.

Tannacha couldn’t allow this to happen and had ordered his cruisers and available assault craft back to Dulles. Nalater had wanted to leave one of the cruisers at Reutov but Tannacha overruled this, telling him that the cruisers had to stay together.

Back at Dulles the fighting was mainly hand to hand and extremely ferocious. Around five thousand resistance fighters had captured half of Dulles International Airport.

These resistance fighters had formed when Earth Central had first been put under threat. They had organised within Earth Central, and then been given permission to slip out over a period of time and meet up at Manassas.

They were mainly ex-US forces - marines, air force, army, navy and the like - but there were other disciplines as well. They were organised and well armed with conventional weapons and their commitment was unquestionable.

The leader’s name was Mark Howden. He had been a major in the marines, before being discharged on medical grounds. When the ESG was first formed, Mark had applied, but after training as an assault craft pilot, he had been turned down again on medical grounds. Now, however, he was showing his true worth.

The set-up and organisation of the resistance was his idea and he had done an excellent job bringing together a disciplined and motivated force of around ten thousand resistance fighters in a very short space of time.

This was their first action against the Annunaki and up till now it was all going well. It had been totally unforeseen by Tannacha or Nalater, and surprise had yet again been shown to be the human’s best friend.

Tannacha had even considered this was an ESG trap of some sort, which was one of his main reasons for not splitting his cruisers up. For some reason he desperately wanted to defend his base at Dulles. Nalater had put this initially down to personal pride but now he wasn’t so sure, Tannacha had seemed to lose all interest in Reutov and the hostages there. His only interest was now the rooting out of the resistance from his precious Dulles.

**

Mark saw the approaching Annunaki battle cruisers and assault craft and passed the order to thin out back around the perimeter of the airport. This was an effort to make air attack more difficult for the Annunaki.

He knew that now they would not be able to take the airport but at the very least they had given the Annunaki a bloody nose.

Just as the Annunaki cruisers took up position above the airport and the assault vessels started to strafe the resistance positions a spectacular sight appeared from the north, Mark couldn’t believe his eyes.

**

Unknown to Mark but common knowledge to air force personnel, armed and prepped F-22-Raptors, about forty of them, had been hidden away just north of a town called Leesburg, around forty-five miles from Dulles. The air force personnel and pilots had split from the main resistance group and headed to Leesburg to retrieve the aircraft and pull off a surprise attack of their own.